1. Field
The present invention relates to cameras having a viewfinder suitable for telescopic photographing and the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, in a digital camera, a photographing composition can be determined by displaying on a display device, such as an LCD monitor, an image currently being photographed. Especially, in a video camera, there is also known a camera, wherein an auxiliary photographing section that photographs a wide angle image for viewfinder display is provided independently of a recording-purpose image pickup section. In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. H05-145818 is listed as an example of the above-described camera.
Incidentally, the conventional single lens reflex camera includes a TTL (Through The Lens) optical viewfinder that observes an image of a subject with a reflected light from a movable mirror disposed on a photographing optical path.
Such an optical viewfinder can confirm the state of a subject through an optical shooting system as it is, wherein the range of field of view by the optical viewfinder substantially coincides with the field angle of the optical shooting system. For this reason, especially when the field angle of the optical shooting system is narrow as in a telescopic photographing, there is a room for improvement because a user loses sight of a moving subject and is likely to miss a photo opportunity.
Moreover, with such an optical viewfinder, the state of a subject through an optical shooting system can be confirmed as it is, however, when the field angle of the optical shooting system is narrow as in telescopic photographing, the field of view becomes extremely narrow. For this reason, a camera capable of observing a wide angle electronic image from an eyepiece section of the above-described optical viewfinder has also been studied.
However, in the camera capable of observing a wide angle electronic image from the eyepiece section of the optical viewfinder, switching the on/off of an unnecessary function is also requested in conjunction with the display state of the viewfinder. Moreover, in the above-described camera, it is sometimes more preferable that displaying of an electronic image be prohibited depending on the situations.